Mermaid Forever
by SaucyMongoose
Summary: It's the kind of happiness Noctis will never be able to achieve, even if he devours Prompto's heart-ventricles, atriums and all. But he never stops yearning. He touches the hump of Prompto's bicep , gritty sand fingers pursuing a certain path of freckles. He says, "I don't know what to do. I keep thinking of the way you'd taste." Promptis, mermen, and exceptional longing.
1. Chapter 1

...

The day Prompto meticulously chooses flowers from the florist—Freesia, Chrysanthemum, the _darling_ Buttercup—he delivers them to the abandoned wharf by his lonesome; he brings them to Noctis, as delicate as they are, wrapped in green tissue paper and knotted together with red ribbon. The bouquets fall out of his arms and onto the wood of the dock; Noctis stirs beneath, swirling a whirlpool for himself.

Casually, he says, "Hey."

"I'd thought you'd like these," Prompto murmurs, barely audible over the crash of the ocean. "You wanted to see flowers, right?"

Then he's on his knees, unraveling the Chrysanthemums. He dangles one below the dock like mistletoe. Noctis snatches it from his grip and ephemerally sloshes underwater, black tail almost invisible. Petals follow his trail and benignly bump in the waves. Prompto picks up a single Freesia; he calls for Noctis as he resurfaces, as the water ripples.

"Sit with me."

Noctis beams, mermaid white teeth flashing. He grunts as he pulls himself out of the water and onto the dock. He's wet and shining, sea scales glistening from the ocean and sun; his whole body compresses with breath from the exchange of gills to lungs. He wheezes and sighs, eyes flickering from bouquet to flower. Noctis presses all of his coldness and dampness into Prompto's side, whispering into his ear, "You thought of me." He shifts unfathomably closer, so Prompto shudders, so Noctis's nose brushes the freckles on his cheek, "Thank you, Prom."

It's the way he's been lately, so oddly intimate—he coddles Prompto now, with mermaid kisses and enduringly soft touches. Noctis's slippery nose dips to the sensitivity of Prompto's throat; the Freesia Prompto held slaps across Noctis's cheek out of instinct. Prompto flutters, his heart and his lashes. He must be blushing, red as the thorny roses he refused to buy—all out of concern for Noctis's safety. But he hates being treated like a child, like Prompto's pet fish. Prompto has an apology on the tip of his tongue, but Noctis speaks before he can muster the courage.

"Flowers are different than I'd thought they'd be."

"Yeah? How?"

Noctis shrugs like he's bored out of his mind, but the blue of his eyes is ample and active. He _likes_. "I can keep this one?" He twirls the same wet Chrysanthemum between his thumb and index finger, smile revealing too sharp teeth.

Prompto gestures to the bouquets, "They're all yours. I bought them for you."

A moment passes before Noctis's primal merman instincts appear; he has an expression of innocence and bliss before it melts into one of brutality. Noctis tears the flowers apart, stem from stem. The tissue paper takes flight with the breeze lapping through Noctis's damp hair; he gnaws away the ribbons and their tiny bows. He takes an unscathed flower into his hand, a _Ranunculus_ —a Buttercup. He cups its bloom, veiling his nose in its scent.

"Flowers smell nice, I guess."

Prompto laughs at Noctis's attempts to stay cool. He nods, "They're really beautiful."

Noctis hums, tucks the buttercup in Prompto's tresses, "So they fit you. Beautiful things should be together."

Prompto blushes and wonders if Ignis has been teaching Noctis about the necessities of charm and charisma. Noctis smiles at the sight of sprawling pink; he tentatively touches the warmth of Prompto's expression with freezing merman fingers. He lingers and lingers until it's too much, until Prompto feels his breath over his lips, until he's pinching Noctis's arm.

"So what's the point?" Noctis asks in his ascending tone, his _uninterested_ tone. Prompto can tell by the way he has his hands placid in his lap, by the way he has averted his eyes—Noctis is a little displeased at his resistance. "What do humans do with flowers?"

"We give them to the people we like," Prompto says and Noctis is suddenly smirking, sliding his tail against the blonde's knee because he _must_ like him. Prompto sighs, playfully pushing at Noctis's shoulder, "Or, we put them in our houses. Just to look pretty."

"Mm, _houses_ ," Noctis stresses the word like he's in deep thought. "Where you humans _live_ ," Noctis says, a frown twitching at his lips, tail undulating in a manner that disturbs the water below the dock.

He says, "Prom, I've been thinking," and he's serious. Prompto waits patiently because Noctis isn't so good with seriousness; he's not apt in communication and feelings. "I thought that I should see your place—maybe, I could go home with you."

"To my house?"

Noctis artlessly nods and Prompto thinks of his creaking floorboards back at home, the kinds that could leave splinters in soft merman flesh. He thinks of the nonexistent decorative flowers Noctis must be imagining of now, as his eyes gloss over with that unknown _something_ , that mysterious merman emotion. He thinks of chipped paint and rusty nails and isolation and desolation—and what is the difference exactly?

A lump manifests in Prompto's throat, even as he swoons over the thought of having Noctis splash in his brass tub. He doesn't know what to say; he forgets how to speak. He only knows how to touch Noctis's hand, the one that's feigning contact over his thigh; he squeezes like one would squeeze a sponge. Prompto realigns his feelings to Noctis's strange human expression, how his lips tug into a smile for him. His palm is plagued with flexion creases, dripping saltwater, and uncharacteristic tenderness.

Prompto wants to say, "What is this with you, Noct?"

But his grasp slips from Noctis's hand; Prompto's intention is to let his touch fall over the seaweed coiling around his forearm, to his elbow, to ascend to his shoulder—but Noctis entwines their fingers instead, almost harshly.

He says, "I want to be with you."

Amid the sweet stroke of lips against his cheek and the vehement squeeze of his waist, Prompto sighs like a dream. Noctis consumes him with his body, holding him cold and close, plopping his tail on the blonde's lap. He lets Prompto's digits glide along his dark fish scales without complaint. The ocean cries and Prompto thinks of everlasting togetherness: holding hands and bumping foreheads. He thinks of _mermaid forever_ , the way Noctis had loathed the concept months before. It's so much more than a mere human's forever; Prompto can't possibly fathom. He thinks he hears Noctis murmur perpetual secrets between soft kisses upon his crown, and Prompto thinks that forever, mermaid or not, is a problem.

...

Before the flowers, before Noctis nips at their petals with sharp teeth, before he plucks at each bloom with his fingers and teases, "He loves me, he loves me not…" Prompto brought him food from the Crow's Nest in a brown paper bag. Mermen have this inane and insatiable appetite for burgers and fries and grease. Prompto ordered the same thing for him: a plain burger, no tomato, no lettuce, no onion. He would buy him a large fry and milkshake. Back then, it was harmless; Noctis would circle the dock, swishing his shimmer tail and say, "I want some of your shake, Prom." He'd say, bratty-like, "Gimme."

Down below, he's a prince—a big deal. It's evident from his black tail; those scales are reserved for the line of Lucis. Noctis could've wished for a feast of seafood delicacies and his servants would prepare them. But he was sick of fish, sick of servants, and sick of oceanic royalty. All he wanted was Prompto's strawberry milkshake; all he wanted was peace. It was so simple then, before the flowers. It may have been a little cute too, how Noctis would catch food in his mouth when Prompto would toss it to him, how his jaw would clack shut—but he _hated_ being treated like Prompto's pet fish.

It's something he reminds him of all the time, especially when he got weary of being fed like some seal. He smacked Prompto's foot with his tail fins, muttering, "I can't do this anymore. Not with you."

Noctis curtly yanked his body out of the water indignantly, panting and pouting. The muscles in his arms strained. His belly slapped against the wood and his tail lashed. He didn't want any help; he swatted at Prompto's hands until he was fully seated on the dock, dripping and gasping, "From now on, I'll eat up here." A smirk tugged at his lips, his chest bulged, pride gleamed in his eyes—and Prompto had laughed into the ocean cool of his shoulder.

"I'm impressed, Noct."

He had scoffed, slung a wet arm around Prompto without hesitance, and asked for a few of his fries. They slurped strawberry flavored shake through the same straw, fed each other fries, and ate from the same plain burger— _platonically_. Somehow, Prompto was Noctis's best friend, even though Noctis _fucking_ _despised_ humans in a somewhat unhealthy and bottled up way. The feeling was mutual, even if Noctis frequently clamped on Prompto's wrist and bit hard enough to draw blood. He'd always bring Noctis human junk food and eventually, he'd bring him flowers.

He'd let Noctis inhale the aroma of grilled beef from cradle of his hand too, if he was so inclined, so infatuated. He'd let him nibble at the blue veins lining the back of his palm and he'd let him kiss his knuckles, scavenging for bits and pieces of food left behind. Prompto had done that before, dipping his hands under the dock.

But when Noctis crawled out of the ocean, he was so impatient, so eager for everything—his senses went into overdrive. A single drop of sweat on Prompto's nape had him resolutely nosing around the blonde's blushing neck, nuzzling and groaning against the collar of his shirt, "I couldn't really smell you until now, but you smell _so_ _good_ Prom."

"Um, thanks?"

The slightest shift in wind had him reeling; Noctis said that he knew the earth smelled unusual, but there were so many scents he could detect from the docks. He could predict a rainstorm, precisely when it would start pouring, if there'd be lightning and thunder. He could sniff out the direction of a fire, a gas station, a barbeque. But it was the pungent stench of grease that really drove him wild.

It was all over Prompto's hands, complemented by occasional specks of condiments. Noctis was enthralled. He grabbed his wrist, pointed at each smear of mayonnaise and mustard. He had sniffed around them and asked curtly, "What's this one?"

"Ketchup."

Noctis hummed, innocuously, "I can try, yeah?"

Suddenly, Noctis bared his knifelike teeth; they eased near Prompto's fragile human flesh. Sometimes, they slipped and cut, but Prompto let him suck on his thumb despite of the danger. He let him lick ketchup from the pads of his fingers, let that rough feel swarm his prints. Noctis had this kind of cat tongue, pink and barbed.

It was as strange as his cold-blooded skin that never partial to color—he considered the human blush a wonder. And Prompto could remember—he had _smoldered_ crimson. His freckles were prominent pinpricks of brown and his cheeks were lukewarm in the same way that made Noctis marvel. He had shamelessly gawked as his tongue slipped over Prompto's salty middle finger, as he pursed his lips around Prompto's mustard stained ring finger and pinky.

When he had finally stopped, when he let his dim smile rest aside the caress of Prompto's palm, he had vaguely mentioned the red of Prompto's burning cheeks, like it was the _prettiest_ thing. Red was so foreign to the ocean; to Noctis, red was only known as the color of fresh blood misting through the waves or the rush beneath his human friend's discomfited skin—never ketchup. So it was okay—with him, everything made perfect sense. Even when Noctis eyed a single smudge of ketchup, leaned in, and pressed his mermaid slick lips against the corner Prompto's mouth, it was fine.

"Ketchup is good," Noctis said, "I didn't want to waste it, you know?"

Prompto's smile was wobbly, unstable, teetering on the peripheries of self-destruction. "I had ketchup on my face?"

"Uh-huh," Noctis grinned. "You're such a messy eater Prom."

"Like you're any better!"

Noctis trapped Prompto within his damp arms, flapped his sparkling tail at the currents underneath the dock. He chuckled, "Yeah, but I'm a merman. That gives me an excuse."

Prompto huffed. He crossed his arms over his chest and turned away, denying Noctis his attention. The way he _groaned_ —it was more of a wheeze. Prompto could feel his gills flare.

"Come on. Look at me, Prom."

He didn't. Noctis nudged Prompto's chin back toward him anyway. He smirked before running his bristling tongue against a smattering of Prompto's freckles; "Mayonnaise," he said, which could've been a lie; his voice was laced in an unknown _something,_ what Prompto liked to call the merman emotion. Then Noctis murmured, in a more candid tone, "All this human food makes me have _lavish_ dreams."

He used that word specifically: _lavish_.

Prompto joked, feeling Noctis's breath tickle his nape, "You sleep?"

"Of course. I used to have reoccurring dreams about drowning you and eating your brain. Then your heart, but that didn't last long. And now, I dream about socks and pants and you saying 'Noct, you have fucking legs' over and over."

Currently, Prompto has a firm belief that the problem started there—when Noctis dreamed of human legs and polka dot socks, when he was honest and daydream soft, touching and longing but never too much and never enough. Forever started then, between burgers and fries.

...

 _Um, yeah…? Tell me how you feel?_


	2. Chapter 2

_Part two, I guess._

 _..._

But Prompto can't bring it up, this forever thing; he doesn't know how. He basks in indecision, the sweltering orange of the sun beginning to set, and the furl of Noctis's tail seizing and releasing.

Noctis is above him and around him, shadowing and encompassing all of his existence—too close to consumption. Prompto can feel him seeping into his spine, the merman flesh of Noctis's chest pushing, still damp and quietly assertive. He flanks Prompto's sides with waltzing fingertips and caressing palms, involuntarily curling his pretty tail beneath him. Tone wavering in whispers and sweeping lows, Noctis says, "Prompto, picture this."

He conjures scenes of Prompto coddling him with candlelight Crow's Nest dinners, capturing him with the wonders of tuxedos and flames. He hums of cinema; when he makes landfall, the first thing they're doing is seeing a movie, whatever Prompto would like—but it _has_ to be bloody. Prompto winces and Noctis laughs, scoffs maybe, toying with the fringes of the blonde's hair, glancing at a stray flower whip by him in an ocean breeze, "We could get tons of flowers, Prom, for you and me. Whatever you think is right. We could lay in them all night, me and you."

And while their noses coalesce in gentle brushes, Prompto simmers with unspoken words.

There's a moment to ruin.

Noctis softly inquires if Prompto can see it all, if his clairvoyance functions as well as a merman's—because Noctis can definitely see it: the dinners, the candles, the movies, the crisp lapels of tuxedos. And yet, Prompto stays quiet and coy; he shies away from Noctis, blushing wondrously red, distracting himself with broken flower stems. Meanwhile, Noctis prods Prompto's scalp with his chin.

"I don't know, Noct. I just…"

The soft nudges enclosing the top of his head cease; Noctis indifferently declares, "I can feel you thinking about bad things, _nerd_."

"You can't," Prompto shoves, retaliates against Noctis's hold lightheartedly, "and I'm not."

"Such a bad liar. I can tell, you know, with the way you _chomp_ on your lip."

He stops abusing his lower lip, almost instantly. He tells Noctis to shut up and disregards his friend's low utterance of "Or what?" There's the snap of Noctis biting at his nape and he ignores that too, focusing on his friend's hissing gills. He thinks of touching and feeling them undulate; he imagines Noctis's expression, the kind of cringe that would contort and distort his features because they're sensitive, like Prompto's stomach lining, like the transition between Noctis's tail and torso.

Prompto feels his friend's fingers weaving through his hair again; this time, he's removing the buttercup the blonde had forgotten about, cleanly cleaving the bloom from the stem. Noctis isn't well versed in human mannerisms of course, so he chews loudly, struggling with the bits stuck among his vivid rows of teeth. Hence, Prompto's brow furrows; Noctis leans, moves forward to curve his smooth palm around his freckled forehead.

Amid vicious munches, Noctis snorts, "You think about the worst too much."

Prompto's mouth opens before he can form a rebuttal—a squawk escapes. The words falter, clipped by Noctis's lips on the curve of his collarbone, impatient but motionless. There's tongue and pressure and morsels of buttercup, a small smile pressing into the ridge of bone. He chuckles, chilly breath ghosting over freckled skin; Noctis touches, arms surrounding Prompto slowly—the blonde can envisioning him confining his prey, prepping for his first bite.

"Prom," he says, "you jumped."

Prompto doesn't recall. He does remember the squawk though, the inhuman dissonance of his voice echoing off the waves and rotting wood of the wharf. He remembers the instant in which Noctis's admiral eyes dilated, how his pupils shrank and expanded so quickly, as if he were fascinated by Prompto's-

"You didn't think I was gonna bite, did you?"

Between a twitch of lips and a fully developed smile, Prompto whimpers _sweetly_. In a probable response, Noctis sighs into the cushion of his sternum. There's a tingle in the apexes of the blonde's limbs, a kind of numbness. His heart palpitates and his fingers quiver over Noctis's back—but hell, it feels _good_. It feels like Noctis, the old Noctis, the Noctis that Prompto bared his skin to only for him to bite and _twist_. Every old scar aches, reminds him of times when Noctis was ruthless, awkward, never _romantic_.

This Noctis pretends like his teeth don't graze Prompto's collar enough to _sting_. This Noctis strokes unadulterated affection into his skin as he mumbles over rigid bone and warm skin, "Is that the problem? You think…"

Complacently, he nips—if Prompto could look at anything other than Noctis's avid, dilating eyes, he'd discern a fleck of blood and a flick of a barbed tongue.

"You think I'd _mar_ you."

It's another word he uses with precise intent, another word stolen from Ignis: _mar_.

Prompto wants to say: _forever, that's the problem._ He wants to say something about this softness, the overwhelming outpour of intimacy Noctis has showered him with in the past few days. He wants to say something about the flowers, the ones that have been brutalized by Noctis, the ones that are currently being ignored. He wants to point out every predicament all at once, so Noctis can understand.

"I won't hurt you again."

He nuzzles Prompto's Adam's apple, probably thinking about ripping it from his throat. Prompto wills his muscles to stay calm, relaxed— _comfortable_.

"I promised, didn't I?"

"Three times," Prompto murmurs, quiet as Noctis murders any remaining distance between them.

Noctis mumbles, catching the way Prompto momentarily glances at his _everything_ , "Four." His tail coils as his arms equally compress. Prompto shivers and feels lips again—Noctis's kisses. They begin at a leisurely pace, at the curve of the jaw. Minimally, they extend toward the lips with each brief press, but they never touch. Amid the proximity, Prompto burns. He mentions Noctis's eternal cool, the myriad of flowers slipping away into the endless of the ocean, the sun beginning its evening dive into the waves. He squirms and mentions work, his job, that he'll have to go soon— _too_ soon. As if it's any more relevant, he asks, "Noctis, don't you have a crown?"

The kisses pause; the waves crashing against the dock and the nearby shore seem to cease. There's a shush of skin upon skin and manmade fabric. There's a long, unhurried lick upon Prompto's nape—punctuated by the remarkable sensation of _teeth_.

"What I meant was," Prompto stammers, gasping for breath he didn't know he had lost, "I'm asking if you have something better to do?"

Noctis doesn't even hesitate: " _Never_."

"You're a _prince_."

"And I always make time for you, don't I?"

"I didn't say-"

"I'm trying, Prom. Like now."

Noctis sounds desperate. He separates himself from him, taking all of Prompto in: the contrast between his caramel freckles and cream skin, his seemingly eternal blush, his wavering lips.

"Humans like this, right? Affection…" he gestures amid the dead space—he kisses a forlorn freckle on Prompto's cheek. "You need it, right?"

A careful, timid hand comes to rest on Noctis's chest—Prompto barely pushes, hardly feels a familiar thump. The merman is still close, droning underwater hymns against his neck, circling various limbs with curious palms. It doesn't take long for Prompto to concede, for his arms to slip around the merman's shoulders, for Noctis—his _friend_ —to slither to his thighs. A press of jaw, a chuckle—all from Noctis; he alludes to affection in archaic Lucian speech, words mankind can't comprehend. He sighs in a husky manner, lips suddenly pressed to Prompto's knuckles:

"You _want_ it?"

Prompto shivers and Noctis takes it as an invitation.

Barrages of damp kisses proceed without resistance. They're received in intervals; Noctis doesn't fully approach the mouth, intentionally, like it's too much _intimacy_ for them, like a real mouth-to-mouth kiss could cross a thin but apparent line—but it's _all_ too much. Every touch is smoldering; Noctis's hands deftly search and squeeze. He runs his cat tongue along the seam of Prompto's lips, worships each corner of the blonde's mouth with his own.

Noctis wants Prompto to _melt_ , to come _undone_.

Prompto's spine meets the sun-zapped wood of the dock—and the realization that Noctis has him locked in a position that they're never supposed to be in is slow and less terrible than he'd thought it'd ever be. In a deliberate and lengthy motion, he kisses Prompto's jugular, the most vulnerable, sensitive, and tender—

" _Fuck_ _you_."

The insult is breathless, half-hearted, overshadowed by the husky rumble of Noctis's laughter. "Relax," he coos, like he never dreamed of having Prompto horizontal and restricted, heart potentially open for the taking. "I won't do anything _bad_ ; I told you. You trust me, don't you?"

Prompto pants _Noct_ in overtones he didn't know he could reach, all amidst twisting clumps of dark merman hair, "I trust you so much." He writhes relentlessly, hopelessly against the muscle of Noctis's arms, the coil of his tail, the feel of his closeness. "So much, so much." He's too wound up, but Noctis feels electric, slick, like an embodiment of pure energy—and here in the imminent dark, anything could happen. He could crane his neck and go for his heart and then-

Noctis hums, "But you don't trust me enough to be with me the way I want."

He tongues over the blonde's tangential pulse, nips and placates. He gives Prompto's carotid artery—his _favorite_ blood vessel—unnecessary attention: suction, saliva, the feel of teeth languidly sinking—but they never breach or break. This particular location on Prompto's throat will be an obvious and irritated shade of red when he's done, the color Noctis adores; it'll linger until its violet and dark and embarrassing, until Aranea points it out in front of everyone. He'll have to explain: _this is how Noctis, Lucis's crown prince, tried to compel me to kidnap him from his duties._

Prompto stutters excuses again; Noctis interrupts him, "You don't understand."

There's the tongue again, spanning the underside of Prompto's chin, residing on the subtle indentation. The fine _quills_ of Noctis's tongue are palpable until they aren't—until Noctis whispers, "While you were gone, I _felt_."

He clutches at the heart, the key to forever. His fingertips curl and his nails dig to the point of apprehension—and Prompto thinks that this could be it. He squeaks, "Noct, my _heart_ -"

"No— _your damn mouth_."

The union of their lips is sudden; Noctis's merman quickness serves him well as he makes a mess of their mouths. He pries Prompto's sealed lips open with his incisors, swallows a moan and an ounce of delectable blood. Their tongues tentatively tangle, and in a shift of position, their teeth collide and clack—Prompto reels, gaping long enough for Noctis to latch onto his bottom lip, for him to suck the puncture wounds. This lasts; Noctis maintains eye contact, admiral irises swimming with the notorious and mysterious merman emotion. He takes time to pamper Prompto's upper lip, letting his eyes close, giving his blonder, more embarrassed counterpart a tad of control.

Being more experienced at osculation somehow, Noctis moves again taking Prompto with him; they switch from horizontal to vertical to oblique and awkward arrangements. Prompto has to prop himself up on his elbows as Noctis presses them together, propelling them both toward the peripheries of the dock. Amidst his enthusiasm—the most Prompto has ever seen from him—he slides between Prompto's legs, murmuring more perpetual secrets against his lips. He places his fingers where they shouldn't be—near his hips, too eager to feel.

They reach a point of danger, where they could both fall backwards into the water; Prompto holds onto Noctis, haphazardly.

With his right hand, Prompto grasps the scar zigzagging down the majority of Noctis's fishtail, where any kind of contact feels so _wrong_ for him; the fingers of his left, the hand that had snaked around Noctis's nape, slip into the slits of the merman's gills. They both feel powerlessly soft, like vulnerability; Prompto gulps.

Natural reaction forces Noctis to jolt—the kiss halts. Teeth are momentarily bared in a vicious display; a trivial snarl morphs into a lingering snivel within an instant. His tail slips right between Prompto's fingers, treading past the surface of his palm, slick, and shiny from everlasting ocean spray and sunshine.

Noctis flings his tail, as if to rid the remnants of Prompto's callousness, the imprints of digits bemoaning his scales. An acknowledgement of wrongdoing slips from the blonde's swollen lips, seemingly unheard. Noctis is preoccupied with his tail, the scar perhaps.

He looks and looks until: "What'd you eat for lunch? You tasted funny."

"Chili."

Noctis scowls, "Beans, right?"

Prompto sheepishly nods. Noctis tried beans last month, only to spit them out on the dock.

"Gross."

There's ocean quiet, protracted intimacy between their eyes, the exchange of childish smiles, and juvenile laughter. They close the distance again, slowly, always so slow.

"It didn't hurt, did it?"

Noctis thumbs over Prompto's bottom lip, daubing blood and drool. He dons a grin in the midst of it—his lidded blue eyes flare mysterious merman sentiment; heat stretches over Prompto's freckled skin, enhanced by the waning and setting sun. As suddenly indicated by Noctis, Prompto's red and beautiful; he exemplifies the bleeding sky, the streaks of color that bound through clouds and settles upon the activity of ocean water. He says it so casually, unfazed by Prompto's swatting hands or the way they move to cover his ears.

Then Noctis laughs, like it was all a joke—and maybe it was. "If I hurt you, you would've curled up in a ball and died." He licks his thumb, dotes on it, takes time to savor the traces left of Prompto.

Compared to other instances of pain rooted in Noctis, it's not so bad. Prompto's ruptured lip throbs; the tiny lesions still ooze and beckon for Noctis's attention, but it's dull. He wipes at his mouth with his bare arm, leaving crimson streaks that Noctis cherishes.

"Did I hurt you? I didn't mean to—well. You know."

There's blood there too, rolling from the flaps of Noctis's gills in a thin line. He has reeled himself in, alternating concentration between his scarred tail and Prompto's concerned lips; mysterious merman emotion dawdles his expression. The blonder of the two thinks that maybe, he has broken something between them, scarred something—like his shoulder or his wrist or his arm or Noctis's achingly gorgeous tail.

Prompto squeaks out another articulation of regret and scoots back across the rough of the dock. He thinks of Noctis's trust torn to flowery shreds, Noctis pooling back into the ocean and becoming invisible in its plentiful darkness; Prompto thinks until Noctis inclines for another kiss—one that Prompto hesitantly denies with a prolonged turn of his head, just as prolonged as Noctis's attempted kiss.

It makes its mark anyway, on the delicate skin of Prompto's jaw; the blonde sighs, "We should talk about this."

Noctis grunts, "Kissing?"

"Everything."

"Mm."

"Noct, you've been different," Prompto dithers above Noctis's chuckle, "and it has nothing to do with my mouth."

"Your lips, maybe. Is that different?"

"No, Noct."

"You know," Noctis murmurs, subtly changing the subject, "A kiss isn't a thing in Insomnia. Mermaids, mermen-we'd devour each other. Humans kiss." He twiddles with Prompto's hair, twirls it between two fingers.

"So you're kissing me 'cause…?"

His voice starts as a whispers and morphs into a groan: "I wanted to—I've been wanting and wanting."

Prompto hates the way Noctis's dark pupils dilate and swell across the expanse of his blue irises. He averts his eyes and grumbles, "It's not my mouth."

Leaning in for, presumably, another kiss, Noctis growls, "Shut up."

Prompto pouts, an action that provokes a snap from Noctis—the blonde curtly tilts his head, only to look out over the murky, shifting planes of the ocean.

"Hey," Prompto stammers, "Is that…"

"Ignis," Noctis says his name curtly, with enough irritability in his tone to startle Prompto; he starts to ponder what the problem is. Is it the foul taste of beans? Perhaps, it's still the Prompto's uncouth squeeze of his scar, the fingers he plunged into his trachea? Or maybe it's Ignis's lurking presence, his bobbing head and gleaming sunset wet shoulders settled respectfully outside of their bubble.

Noctis moves quick, innocuously mouthing at Prompto's left shoulder—the marred and multiple slumps of healed skin. It's impulse; Noctis shares annoyance through his teeth, through natural cruel instinct.

Prompto addresses this with a quiet, "You have to go?"

"Father-son bonding," Noctis mutters, left palm gliding over Prompto's left shoulder, "I'm over it." The tips of Noctis's fingers dip into the scars encircling his skin; the motion contains too much sentimentality. Prompto subtly jostles his touch before speaking.

"Bonding is good."

An edge of Noctis's mouth curls; he bares a sliver of incisors. He cradles Prompto's cheek within the cup of his palm. His voice is this mellifluous, easily persuading, and remotely evil thing, "We can both skip, to wherever." A twitch of lips exhumes a mischievous grin and words slip amid the sharp ends of Noctis's teeth, "You could take me home with you."

Prompto touches him back, tenderly, with regret.

"I have to work, buddy."

Noctis's fingers spread-he frowns faintly, barely visible in the horizon's glow.

"Not your buddy."

For Noctis, Prompto smiles, generous and wide. The merman pinches, pulling on his friend's human skin, studying its malleability.

"Have fun with those wannabes."

Noctis has to pull himself to the wooden, splintered boundaries. It looks painful, like a struggle.

But then Noctis loiters there on the edges, subtly hesitant—which is peculiar for him. He's impulsive in some instances and lethargic in others; emotion moves him to do and say things that he wouldn't. He must be _feeling_ again.

From his awkward position of simultaneously tipping over the dock and looking back, Noctis watches Prompto stumble to stand, notes each damp blotch on his clothes—he says, "That thing about us being together... taking me with you and all that…" He trails off, longingly romancing a Chrysanthemum with his index finger. He'd blush if he could. It's a kind of merman bizarre; he wasn't embarrassed before.

"You should sleep on it."

Fondly, Prompto snorts, "You'd say that."

"Really, Prom. You should say yes."

Noctis doesn't give him a chance to reply, to wrap up the remaining freesias for him; he moves and the ocean slurps Noctis's slender body back into its immensity. He takes flowers with him; some smooth over the surface, while others accompany Noctis's dive into the depths. His obsidian tail slinks in the water with soft ripples, so unbelievably quiet—it'd be hard tell if anything pertaining to him was real, if those flowers didn't linger and pepper the water, if Prompto's blood didn't drip and blot his shirt.

He samples himself, the warm crimson puddle on his bottom lip. He ends up cringing. Blood is metallic and terrible—nothing like the sweetness Noctis muses, nothing like the flavor he craves.

Prompto frowns; he sits idly, legs outstretched, and fingers clinging to the sides of the dock. He wonders if Noctis will think of him until tomorrow, if he'll sleep—wherever he sleeps—and dream of kissing his way down a freckled thigh simply to take a chunk out of him. He thinks of thoughts and how theirs have somehow been centered on each other since they've met, since every parting until the moment they convene again. It means something— _forever_ is the culprit. Prompto can feel it in his gut—seething and aching and _yearning_ for Noctis to turn around, to swim back.

But tomorrow, he will. They haven't arranged meetings since March, not since the apology. Noctis never bothers with farewells—he knows Prompto will come back. He knows when he returns too, like he has devoured some essential part of Prompto already. But then Prompto feels for it and it's there, pounding against his sternum, palpitating watermelon wide. He feels his pulse surge and roar, even as they circumnavigate the concept of mermen and forever and kissing—it aches when Prompto remembers: _I wanted to—I've been wanting and wanting._

Maybe his heart wants it too.

...

 _This…took a lot of time to get right._

 _I hope you liked my 3,000 words that definitely lack plot progression. Tell me how you feel._


End file.
